Saturday 4 May 2013 18.21 EDT
First published on Saturday 4 May 2013 18.21 EDT

David Moyes is certainly keeping us waiting before it becomes clear whether he is going to remain at Everton, but it is tempting sometimes to wonder whether he ever looks at what happens elsewhere and considers that his current life, despite its restraints and occasional frustrations, at least offers some kind of security.

He might have noticed, say, the very different set of working practices that brought one of Manchester City's top executives, Txiki Begiristain, to Madrid to dine with the agent of the Malaga coach Manuel Pellegrini, and the explanation that was swiftly cobbled together, when the two were caught in the act, that nothing too much should be read into it because it might simply have been to negotiate a player.

The agent does not actually represent any players but any form of embarrassment will quickly pass. City are doing only what just about every other club does in their position: assessing, planning and applying their own set of rules. It can be a cut-throat business and perhaps a reminder to Moyes, approaching one of the more important decisions of his professional life, that sometimes there is a lot to be said for working in a familiar environment where he knows this kind of thing does not go on.

His contract winds down in the next few weeks and it is surprising in many ways, in the absence of any clarity from Goodison, that there have been not more headlines about the fact it is still entirely up in the air and whether he intends to replace it with a new one. A part of that is because Moyes has straight-batted any questions with the stock reply that we will find out in the summer and not before.

The Scot has been at Everton for 11 years and the emotional attachment is so strong it seems a lot of people simply assume he will not be able to bring himself to leave. Yet Moyes has never before run down his contract. At the very least, he is weighing up his options and that makes this a significant juncture for Everton and their chairman, Bill Kenwright. An uneasy one, too, when there are very few clubs in English football where the manager is of greater importance.

Moyes's expertise in assembling a team of great togetherness and competitive spirit hardly needs reiterating but he still probably does not get the acclaim he deserves when, to put it in context, Everton are going for their fifth top-eight finish in a row, whereas a Premier League table of net transfer spend over that period would put them fourth from bottom.

They are one of just six clubs, along with Swansea, Wigan, Newcastle, Reading and Arsenal, to record a profit in that time, in Everton's case £12.3m, and if you tot up the figures going all the way back to Moyes's appointment in March 2002 his importance becomes even more stark. Everton's average net spend per season in the Moyes years comes in at a mere £803,000. Compare that with Aston Villa's average of £10.8m over the past decade, Stoke's £7.8m and Sunderland £7.6m and their corresponding league positions: Everton pushing for a Champions League place until recently; Villa, Stoke and Sunderland fighting relegation.

Liverpool, the team Everton always measure themselves against, have spent an average £17.7m, yet the Merseyside derby will kick off on Sundaywith the side from Goodison five points better off and an outstanding chance they will finish ahead of their neighbours for a second successive year. It is no wonder if Moyes sometimes thinks of what he might have been able to do at a club with greater ambitions and resources.

That is not the same as endorsing the theory that he might not be able to take Everton any further. Yes, there are clearly constraints. But it is a misconception to say they have reached their ceiling when the club have not won a trophy under their current management.

It also underestimates how close they are, potentially, to having a team that can sustain a challenge for the top four. It can come as a jolt to discover that Everton have not won a league match at Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal in 44 attempts under Moyes, but they have chopped them all down to size at Goodison and established themselves as the nearest there is to a bogey team for City. Their only real fault this season has been a failure to take more of their chances – a 12.4% conversion rate, according to Opta's number-crunchers, when the other sides in the top eight are averaging 15.9% – and it is a pity for them that Nikica Jelavic's form has nosedived. Had he played like he did last season, Everton would have had an outstanding chance of being in the Champions League qualifying places. Instead, Marouane Fellaini is their top scorer, with 12, while six others have weighed in with seven or eight. No one else has been prolific.

One of the people close to the situation agrees that it is more likely than not that Moyes will stay at the club but that it is a lot closer than many people might think – 60-40, as he put it – and probably better for now to keep an open mind.

As always, it boils down to money. Moyes's salary is not a problem. His attachment to the club is obvious and there is the clear sense that he will always consider his work unfinished until he has won something, but nobody in his position wants to be treading water while others swim into the distance. That, more than anything, is Everton's problem.

Goodison, for all its enduring charms, can feel like a tired place sometimes, with its worn carpets and peeling paint. The funding simply might not be there to take Everton to the next level and keep them there and, if not, then who can really blame Moyes for feeling this is the time to move on and see what else might come up. And good luck to him, if that is what he decides.

Against all that, he has a form of respect and admiration at Everton that feels almost out of place in the modern football world. On the one hand, it is difficult to think he will ever be fully satisfied unless he experiences what it is like to cruise the red-bricked terraces surrounding Goodison on an open-top bus. On the other, a manager can start to feel stale if there is always that sense of a club making up the numbers and not having the necessary clout to do anything about it.

Moyes has often been touted as a successor to Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and, although it will be other factors driving his decision, a senior executive at Old Trafford confided recently there was no chance they would turn to someone who had practically no experience of working with a large budget or managing in the Champions League. Moyes, in other words, may have to leave Everton first if this is in his thinking at all.

The answer will become much clearer in the next month or so. In the meantime Everton, and specifically Kenwright, surely have to do everything they can to convince Moyes he is not operating in a financial straitjacket. The alternative for Everton, without wishing to sound at all alarmist, is barely worth thinking about.

Early retirement of a good pro leaves a sour taste in the mouth

Amid all the big European games and another weekend of relegation and promotion issues, the story of John Thompson has largely been overlooked. It is a story, nonetheless, that deserves to be told.

Thompson retired on Tuesday after a career that began at Nottingham Forest and then took in spells at Oldham, Notts County and Mansfield Town. He won three Republic of Ireland caps and could probably be best summed up by the "good pro" description Eamon Dunphy uses in Only A Game.

Thompson was the classic good pro but unfortunately for him, he was never able to recover from the psychological damage after a pre-season game, playing for Mansfield, against Ilkeston Town in August 2011.

Thompson had gone up for an aerial challenge with a player by the name of Gary Ricketts. By that stage, two other Mansfield defenders had already been hospitalised, one with a suspected broken collarbone and one needing six stitches to his forehead, after challenges with the same player. In Thompson's case, the Mansfield Chad reported it at the time as Ricketts "inexplicably slamming Thompson, two-handed, into the plastic and metal fencing surrounding the pitch". That was the point the Mansfield manager, Paul Cox, abandoned the game.

Thompson needed 60 stitches. His nose was so badly broken he needed an operation to enable him to breathe properly. He had to eat through a straw for a month and his shoulder and hand were also damaged. When he was fit enough to start playing again, he started to have panic attacks the night before matches, unable to sleep.

He employed a psychologist but has now, at 31, decided to look for a different career. "It has been a hugely frustrating time but I have reached a point where I can't continue," he said.

And what of Ricketts? Ilkeston banned him for a fortnight and held back his wages over that period. He quickly returned to the team and Ilkeston's website now notes how "goals – and controversy – have always featured prominently throughout his colourful career."

They almost make it sound like a good thing.

O Briain shows two can play PFA's game

Dara O Briain probably offered the most sense when it came to the strange set of events at the PFA's annual awards ceremony involving Reginald D Hunter, not to mention Gordon A Taylor, and the news that the Professional Footballers' Association had involved lawyers to try to get its fee back.

Gordon and his chums have some front bearing in mind they could not even agree on the night whether they were more offended by Hunter's line of comedy or simply offended that people were offended.

O Briain's plan, hatched in support of Hunter (in a twist of usual cop-out line, "not that kind of comedian"), is that two can play at the legal game. "I look forward to suing the PFA when their members fail to perform as expected," he says. It's a can of worms, that's for sure.